State v. Proctor - Kansas Judicial Branch

The decisive factor for Justice Kennedy lay in psychological and other scientific
evidence demonstrating juveniles' thought processes and brain functioning to be less fully
developed than those of adults. And that lack of maturation affects the ability of the
typical juvenile to assess and appreciate fully consequences of criminal activity. Juveniles
generally are, then, less morally culpable than adults and have a greater capacity to
reform their socially and legally unacceptable behaviors. 130 S. Ct. at 2026-27 (citing
Roper, 543 U.S. at 569-70). Accordingly, the Court held a punishment banishing
juveniles to lifetime incarceration for crimes other than homicide violates the Eighth
Amendment. Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined in the opinion.
Because the majority decision turned on characteristics of juvenile offenders as a
class and the categorical imposition of an especially harsh punishment on them for crimes
less serious than homicide, it has only limited precedential application here, since we
address a punishment imposed on an adult. But Graham is of interest in several respects.
Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito and Sotomayor joined the Court after Ewing, the
last major Eighth Amendment case challenging incarceration rather than the death
penalty. Thus, Graham provided at least a veiled look at their views. And Justice
Kennedy used Graham to actively promote his narrow proportionality test.
In voting with the majority, Justice Sotomayor recognized proportionality review
as a component of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. She and Justice Ginsburg also
signed off on a brief concurring opinion from Justice Stevens effectively endorsing a
broad proportionality test of the sort favored by the dissenters in Harmelin and Ewing.
130 S. Ct. at 2036 (Stevens, J., concurring). Justice Kennedy's narrow proportionality
test, therefore, failed to garner unqualified support from a Court majority in Graham.
Chief Justice Roberts joined in the judgment of the Court but declined to decide
the case as a categorical challenge. He wrote a separate opinion supporting reversal
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